Pewee Valley Museum

Opened in 2014 in a former fire station beside Pewee Valley’s historic Town Hall, the Pewee Valley Museum celebrates the sixth class city’s unique heritage.

Whimsically named by Louisville educator Noble Butler in the 1850s when the tiny settlement of artists and educators first became a stopping point on the Louisville & Frankfort Railroad, Pewee Valley had grown into a popular resort by the turn of the 20th century. It was known as one of the most beautiful towns in Kentucky, and many of Louisville’s elite families summered here.

Adding to the town’s reputation was the 1895 debut of “The Little Colonel,” by children’s author Annie Fellows Johnston. The story was based on real people and places in Pewee Valley Johnston encountered while visiting the summer before. That thin little volume eventually led to the publication of 11 more “Little Colonel” books, a children’s diary, paper dolls, card games, puzzles, postcards and the 1935 Fox Studio debut of “The Little Colonel” movie starring Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore.

On semi-permanent loan are mid-20th century artifacts from the Pewee Valley Post Office, including a wooden cash drawer, manual cancellation machine and hand cancellation equipment.The gallery at Town Hall includes works by local artists and photographers from different periods of the city’s history.

Museum Location, Hours and Contact Information

The museum is free and open for self-guided tours. QR codes on many photos allow visitors to access the Pewee Valley Historical Society’s website for in-depth information. ​Group tours can be accommodated by special arrangement.

​In the July 7, 2014 Courier-Journal, reporter Kirsten Clark told the story of how the museum got started:

​City's history displayedOpening of museum in an old vehicle bay in Town Hall "a dream," says mayor

Pewee Valley Mayor Bob Rogers describes his town as one where the residents have the police chief's cellphone number, one where he can rattle off the names of longtime residents born at the hospital that used to be down the street from town hall.

"This is small-town America," he said of Pewee Valley, which has a population of about 1,500. "There's not many of us left."

Rogers hopes a new city museum -- in an old vehicle bay at Town Hall, a remnant of the building's earlier days as a firehouse -- will help preserve some of the small town's more than 140-year history.

"It's been a dream, I think, of the city to try to start preserving some of the past," Rogers said.

Pewee Valley Historical Society member and volunteer Jonathan Noffke, who helped put the museum together, said a recent loan of items from a local family served as "a nice impetus" for finally creating a museum.

A collection of items belonging to the Herdt family is on display in Town Hall. They include an old railway luggage cart and a wicker wheelchair from the Confederate Home for homeless veterans in Pewee Valley, which was destroyed by fire.

Carol Goodrich, 67, who said her grandchildren are the Herdt family's sixth generation in Pewee Valley, said the new museum was "the best place: for the items, some of which were too big to store and the family wasn't interested in selling.

Rogers initially approached her about the items for a town museum about three months ago, she said.

Goodrich's great-grandfather, Jacob A. Herdt, was a German blacksmith who moved to Pewee Valley in the late 1800s. He built what is today known as the Herdt Motor Co. building, a red building across the railroad tracks from Town Hall.

Jacob Herdt used the building as a blacksmith shop, and over the years it serves as a wagon shop, a Ford dealership, an automotive repair center and a lawn tractor dealership and repair shop...

....Goodrich said some of the items were things she had long known about, like an anvil bearing her great-grandfather's name, but others -- like a pair of strap-on ice skates that belonged to her grandmother -- she hadn't seen before...

...Rogers said other items were things found inside Town Hall, which used to have its own jail.

"A ball and chain had been back in a closet for years, so for the first time, we have an area we can take stuff out and display it for the community," he said...

... Goodrich said she hopes having her family's collection on display will encourage others to contribute items to the museum.

"I just would kind of hope that people who do have things might see that it's a good place to put things -- so other people can enjoy them and so they don't get lost," she said...

... Noffke, 49, who has lived in Pewee Valley for 14 years, called the new museum a "rallying point" for the city's residents and said it has the potential to spark conversations among the city's "wonderful blend of people."

"Pewee Valley's really blessed with an interesting and varied history, and we just want to make sure everybody knows that," he said. "It gives you a better sense of place and a better sense of community to understand what it is and where it came from."​